South Yorkshire Ironmasters
Lionel Copley
Lionel Copley, was from Broom in the parish of Whiston, in 1603 he took the lease of Attercliffe Forge, by 1637 had converted the Sheffield fulling mill into a forge and in 1641 he erected two furnaces and forges at Wardsend, Barnsley. He also obtained leases of the Conisbrough ironworks and Rockley furnace. By the middle of the seventeenth century he was a leading figure in the Iron Trade of South Yorkshire.
Lionel Copley was the younger son of William Copley of Wadworth (died 1658), and Ann (died 1645), daughter of Gervase Cressy of Birkin. His paternal great-grandfather, Sir William Copley, had acquired the Sprotborough estate in the West Riding of Yorkshire through marriage. His grandfather, Christopher Copley, a younger son of Sir William, purchased an estate a few miles away at Wadworth. This passed to Copley's father and then to his elder brother, Christopher, a colonel in the parliamentary army during the civil war. Copley lived at Rotherham before he inherited the Wadworth estate upon the death of his brother (by 1664). He was normally referred to as ‘Lionel Copley of Rotherham and Wadworth, esquire’. Copley married Frizalina (1610/11–1696), the daughter of George Ward of Capesthorne, Cheshire, and the widow of John Wheeler of London. They had two sons, Lionel and William, and two daughters, Castiliana and Ann.
In the 1570s and 1580s George Talbot, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, had erected charcoal blast furnaces and forges on his estates in and around Sheffield and Rotherham, thus starting an era in the local iron industry that was to last until the mid-eighteenth century. His son, Gilbert, the seventh earl, leased these ironworks to the Copleys during the early seventeenth century. It is uncertain how involved were Copley's father and brother before he himself became the leading ironmaster in South Yorkshire, ranking with George Sitwell (1601–1667) of Renishaw Hall, the dominant figure in the north-east Derbyshire and north Nottinghamshire iron industry.
During the civil war Copley ‘suffered great losses by the forces of the Earl of Newcastle, the royalist commander in Yorkshire and the East Midlands. After the parliamentary victory his fortunes recovered. In 1652 he spent nearly £4000 on acquiring the leases of Chapel and Rockley furnaces and Kimberworth forge. In 1656, an agreement was made between Copley of Rotherham and Francis Nevile of Chevet in West Yorkshire, whereas Nevile was tenant of the ironworks known as Chapell Furnace, Ecclesfield and Kimberworth Forge, Rotherham which formerly belonged to Alice, late Countess Dowager of Arundel and Surrey, at a rent of £100 p.a. and whereas Nevile assigned all his interest in the same to Copley (1 May 1652) and delivered to premises to him with 332 tons of raw iron, for which assignment Copley was bound to him in the sum of £4000, and whereas on 1 July 1653 , Nevile entered into an agreement in his own name (in trust for and on behalf of Copley) with Fabian Phillips and John Holland , by which the lease was extended for 3 years from 26 March 1653 .
In 1661 he renewed his lease to three forges and two furnaces at Wardsend. A rental of Sheffield manor in 1664 notes his leases of Ecclesfield furnace, the ironworks at Attercliffe and Wadsley, and rights to cordwood in the coppices. In 1666 he renewed his leases to Chapel furnace and the forges at Attercliffe, Rotherham, and Wardsend. At that time he was paying £100 per annum rent for Attercliffe forge and the furnace and forge at Wadsley. The archives mention a steel furnace at Kimberworth in the hearth tax returns for Lady Day, 1672, owned by ‘Willm Hellefeild or Mr Copley’ and taxed on four hearths (Ref:Goodchild Collection, Wakefield). In 1666 Copley agreed to convert Rotherham Forge, at his own expense, into a slitting mill
After the death of Lionel Copley, the Attercliffe and associated works passed into the hands of a syndicate - William Simpson of Renishaw, Francis Barlow of Sheffield, and Dennis Hayford .
Copley made his will on 20 November 1675 and died in London on 7 December. His body was taken back to Wadworth for burial in the parish church, where his grave was commemorated by a simple stone, set among other monumental inscriptions to various members of his family. A few months after his death, his son Lionel married Anne Boteler of Hertfordshire. He inherited the Wadworth estate and was the heir to Sir Godfrey Copley of Sprotborough. The Copleys lived at Sprotborough until the 1920s but with the deaths of Lionel Copley and George Sitwell, control of the ironstone mines, charcoal woods, furnaces, forges, and an outlet for sales via the river port of Bawtry passed to a different group of gentry ironmasters, and Copley's son and namesake left the district to become governor of Hull and afterwards of Maryland.
Source: Oxford DNB